Absolutely
by mucho gravy-o
Summary: I never have been adept at separating dream from reality, madness from sanity, or you from my memory. Oneshot, Alice/Hatter, Burtonverse.


**Rarrr. Title fails.**

**This is my first Alice in Wonderland fic. It's not nearly trippy enough, I think. I should have listened to more 'Nine in the Afternoon' and less 'Painting Flowers'... the latter of which is from Almost Alice and absolutely adorable, and fits the fic kind of well in my opinion. It gives me the warm fuzzies. Anyway, any feedback you can give would be so appreciated! I'd love to hear it! ^^**

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When Alice awakens, she realizes that she is not where she is supposed to be. Her bed is in the middle of a fantastically dense garden. The air smells of flowers, and fog drifts about. She feels lethargic and dazed and her mouth tastes of sleep.

She sits up, and as she looks around, the memories come back in the warped manner of a dream, images and clips flicking past at a million a second- the Frabjous Day, Jabberwocky blood, and her friends, the ones she left behind…

_If this is a dream,_ she thinks, sitting up in her soft bed, _it is rather odd so far._ Her dreams always began with the fall down the Rabbit Hole.

The sound of breaking glass erupts very suddenly in the garden, through the trees far to her left. Her heart leaps to her throat, because somehow she just knows, though this dream has never happened before, she just _knows_.

As she slips out of the sheets and her bare feet touch the moss, she notices that she isn't uncomfortable in her long nightgown despite the threat of eyes. "Curiouser and curiouser," she murmurs, and follows the sound of friends. _(Friend, she knows, and she knows who, but can she bear to hope…?)_

Alice crashes through the rest of the flora, and sees him.

"Alice! You're back!" the Hatter exclaims. He is sitting in his usual chair, and the tables are littered with china cups and teapots and pastries, some intact, some not. _Funny how familiar it all is now,_ she thinks, and her grin matches his.

"Hatter," she breathes, beaming. She begins walking toward him and sits the chair he pulls out with an excited flourish, the one immediately to his left. "I suppose I'm dreadfully late for tea."

"No, no, of course not! I've actually no idea whatsoever of the time. The March Hare's been gone since the Frabjous Day, and so has the Dormouse." He sits back in his chair.

"Have they? Why is that?" she asks. "They are all right, aren't they?"

He nods. "I'm sure they are! But they will be disappointed to have missed you if they don't return soon."

"I've missed them very much," she says.

"Oh, Underland has missed you too, Alice! We've all missed you. I never forgot you for a moment, though I'm mad, I never did forget," he says proudly. "Oh, would you like some tea?"

"Y-yes, please," she answers, pushing her teacup toward him. "I never forgot you either, Hatter. Even though I too am mad." She smiles at the way his grin grows, and studies him, relishing in his bright and animated manner. "I did promise."

"I must say…" He pours too much tea into her teacup and some spills on the tablecloth, "You seem to have regained your muchness, Alice. Yes, you surely have."

"Have I? I'm very glad," she laughs.

"You have! There is so much muchness in you now!" He sits back down, and his bloody fingers drum on the table, the thimble making a deadened _click_ on the tablecloth. "I've missed that muchness. You were not Alice without it."

She smiles into her tea. If this is a dream, it is rather nice so far.

"Your head!" he gasps.

"What?" She touches her hair curiously.

"You've absolutely no hat!"

It's all Alice can do not to laugh at his distress. "I suppose I don't."

"I must make you one immediately. But, oh, dear… I can't leave you, not now!" She is amazed at how legitimately torn he looks. His eyes are blue and he frowns, "You'll leave again soon, and I can't miss a moment…"

"I promise not to leave, not so soon." Alice places a calming hand on his, "Just as I promised not to forget you."

He is still, then carefully removes his own hat and places it upon her flaxen hair. "There," he says, more or less satisfied. "Much better."

She smiles softly, touching the rim with two fingers. "Thank you, Hatter."

"Did you ever find out why a raven is like a writing-desk?" he prompts her suddenly.

She frowns in honest thought, putting her teacup to her lips. "I never did. Did you?"

"No," he answers, his expression melancholy for a moment before springing back to his usual _(unusual, mad, lovely) _demeanor. "While you are here, and we don't have to worry about _bringing down the Bloody Big Head_, we can try to figure it out." His voice slips into a rough, darker one at his trigger phrase and rebounds so quickly, it takes her a moment to answer. His tics could be difficult to keep up with.

"We can." She says, thinking. She sets down the teacup, _clink_, in the saucer. "You know something curious, Hatter? This _dream_ is very curious. I usually have seen the Cheshire cat, the Dormouse and the Rabbit Hole before I arrived here, but to-night I simply woke up in the garden, and I haven't seen a one of them."

"That is curious," he answers. "But… we have plenty of time to look for them, later, yes? You aren't leaving again, are you?"

She frowns a bit. "See, I don't know. This is an odd dream. But nice." She feels the singed velvet of the hat's rim between her fingers. "It is a nice dream."

He watches her touch his hat, melancholically again. "You don't think I would be so nice if I were real?"

"Of course you would be! Friends are very nice at any time."

"Even if _you_ weren't real, I would think you were very nice."

"Would I still have my muchness?"

"Perhaps. You would still be absolutely Alice, anyway."

"I'm very glad to hear that."

Her dreams of Wonderland used to be nightmarish at best. She finds she likes Underland much better, she loves it here. _(The madness, the muchness…)_

"You aren't leaving again, are you?"

"You've asked me that thrice already, Hatter," she says in slow confusion.

He blinks. "I simply can't imagine why you would wish to leave. What did the Aboveground have that you don't have here?"

"Oh, Hatter," she sighs, such sympathy in her sunny voice. "I love my friends here. But Aboveground I have… I have…" Her eyes widen. "I… can't remember…"

"Going mad?"

"No, no, it's nothing like that, I simply cannot remember." Alice is alarmed. For the life of her, she doesn't know what called her back to the surface last time she was here, on the Frabjous Day. All she can remember is that there was something, something, but nothing but the need to _stay_ _here_ is in her mind at the moment.

"What is wrong with that?" he asks. "You've lost your head, but we're both mad here." He doesn't like her distressed look, not at all, it's so un-muchy, so utterly un-Alice and he hates not being able to recognize her. He would recognize her absolutely anywhere.

"Hatter!" she exclaims, her hands twisting in her hair under the hat, tugging at the roots. "This isn't making sense! Even less sense than usual," she adds before he can correct her. She searches for memories, of anything before now, and the flicking images come up blank. "I don't understand. This can't be real, I can't remember anything… And my dreams are always…" She gasps. "My dreams…"

"What?" he asks, panic like quicksilver leaking into his voice _(his skin, his blood, and under that, a bit of reluctant understanding- he knows what she's leading to, but it can't be true, it can't…)_. He puts his hands on her shoulders. "What is it, Alice?"

She takes his hands in hers, quickly, like she expects to be cut off at any moment. "Hatter, this isn't a dream."

"A nightmare?" he guesses, crumpling at the despair she's obviously feeling, and therefore the despair that migrates to him.

Alice shakes her head vigorously, her golden hair swinging about. "No, I mean this _can't be my dream,_ it's--"

When Hatter awakens, he realizes Alice is not where she is supposed to be. Mad, muchy, lovely Alice hasn't been, not since the Frabjous Day, whenever that was.


End file.
